


Stars in Our Eyes

by sequence_fairy



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-03-03 00:15:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 43
Words: 13,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13329432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy/pseuds/sequence_fairy
Summary: A collection of drabbles and bits I've written for Doctor Who. Various pairings and genres.





	1. G - A Fist Fight

**Author's Note:**

> Ten x Rose + Jack. Written for a tumblr prompt.

Jack winces as the Doctor smooths a butterfly closure over the cut in his eyebrow. 

“I don’t want to know,” the Doctor says, gently poking at Jack’s blackening eye. The other man flinches under the Doctor’s touch, and the Doctor lifts his hands away.

“You should see the other guy.” Jack’s bravado is belied by the way his split lip re-opens as he grins and the Doctor hands him a tissue. 

“I don’t think I want to.” 

“Now Doc,” Jack drawls. 

“Not my name.”

“Fine. Doc _tor_ ,” Jack says, with what might be a wink if his other eye weren’t practically swollen shut. The Doctor rolls his eyes, and Jack continues; “it wasn’t my fault. Honest. I was just in the wrong place.”

“Save it,” says the Doctor, standing and turning away from Jack. 

“You’d have done the same.” Jack says, and the Doctor turns back around, lofting an eyebrow in disbelief. “Some jerk in the bar was getting handsy with Rose.” The Doctor’s brows furrow together, and Jack presses on, “she’d told him to back off, done her own bit of shoving, and when he wouldn’t take the hint, I stepped in. How was I supposed to know he’d have a bunch of idiot friends to back him up?”

The Doctor shakes his head, “second rule of bar fights,” he lifts two fingers, “always bring back up.”

“What’s the first rule?”

“Don’t get in one.” 

Jack laughs, then grimaces as he gets to his feet labouriously. “I’ll try not to Doc,” he quips, then yawns. “Time for bed I think.”

“Hot shower first or everything will seize up.” The Doctor warns, “if the eye’s no better in the morning, we’ll have another look at what I can do about it.” He hands Jack two blue pills, “take these before going to sleep, they’ll help with the swelling and the pain.” 

Jack palms the pills, and waits. 

“Just – thanks,” the Doctor says, ducking his head, “thanks for being there for Rose, when – when I couldn’t.” 

“Anytime,” Jack says and walks out of the medbay. He’s moving gingerly, but there’s no lasting damage. The Doctor cleans up, and heads out himself, to check on Rose, and make sure she’s alright too. 


	2. I - Broken Glass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tenth doctor, post Waters of Mars. Written for a tumblr prompt.

The mirror shatters under his hand. Pieces of glass rain down on the floor at his feet. He’s breathing hard, and he leans heavily against the frame of the mirror, fist still clenched and knuckles bleeding. 

The air tastes of violence and the Doctor  grimaces at his reflection, splintered across the surface of the mirror. 

What has he done? What has he become? This man staring back at him, wild-eyed and disheveled is not the man he was supposed to be. Not the man she’d want him to be. 

The thought of Rose sobers the rage, and he un-clenches his hand, working his fingers to loosen the ache that’s building. A lone gun shot still echoes through the confines of his mind and the Doctor slumps against the wall, sliding down to sit on the floor, cradling his injured hand close to his chest. 

He’s forgotten himself, and in forgetting himself, he’s forgotten her. 

The Time Lord Victorious. Who is he even kidding anymore? 

The Doctor drops his head back to rest against the wall, silently seeking out the comfort of his time ship. The TARDIS doesn’t respond. In that moment, he knows. He’s overstepped whatever bounds she’d intended him to keep, and there’s no going back now. He pleads with her in his head, but she rebuffs all his advances and somehow, this rejection hurts more then anything else.

“Please?” he asks aloud, voice raw, “I can’t do this alone.” 

She eventually relents, and the Doctor feels the warm rush of their connection reopen in the back of his mind. He almost sobs in relief, managing to keep himself under control through sheer force of will. She hasn’t quite forgiven him yet, and he’s not sure she ever really will now, but she’s at least let him back in, and that’s a start. 

He picks himself up from the floor, mindful of the broken glass and heads to the med bay. 


	3. Y - Tears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clara x Rose, written for a tumblr prompt.

Clara’s voice is thick with emotion, so much so that Rose can hardly make out what she’s saying. The brunette’s words are garbled by hiccoughing sobs that wrack her small frame and Rose is at a loss.

She gathers the smaller woman into her embrace, “honey, you’ve got to tell me what’s going on. Please, just tell me.”

The flat is dark, and their room is illuminated by the lamp on Rose’s side of the bed. It’s late, or rather, really very early and Clara’d woken on a scream that had made all the hair on Rose’s body stand on end. She’d barely sat up before Clara had dissolved.

Rose holds Clara close, rubbing soothing circles into her back, murmuring nonsense into her hair. The brunette settles eventually, sobs turning to whimpers and she lifts her head from where it’s been buried in Rose’s chest.

“I thought–” she stops to sniffle and Rose hands her a tissue. Clara blows her nose and then grips Rose’s hand so tightly Rose can feel her nails digging in. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“’M not going anywhere sweetheart,” Rose says, cupping Clara’s chin, “you’re stuck with me now.”

Clara smiles weakly, and Rose taps her nose, “that’s my girl.”

“I don’t think I can go back to sleep,” Clara admits, and Rose smiles softly.

“Let’s make hot chocolate and watch crap telly ‘til we both pass out then,” Rose suggests and this makes Clara laugh. Not her real laugh, but a close enough facsimile that Rose takes it for acquiescence and she slips out of bed.

Neither of them last very long into the late night movie and when the morning sun filters into the flat, Rose wakes with Clara curled against her on the couch, both of them holding the other.


	4. R - A Deafening Sound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nine x Rose, bit of hurt/comfort. Written for a tumblr prompt.

Rose’s ears are ringing. She blinks, trying to make the noise stop. Her whole body feels numb and kind of like she’s floating outside of herself. She blinks again. This time the indistinct world around her resolves into sharpness. The air is filled with dust and she coughs. She’s lying on the ground, surrounded by rubble. 

She can’t hear anything. There is no sound. Not even the sound of her own breathing or her heartbeat in her ears. All she can hear is a high-pitched whine that doesn’t stop. She rolls to a seated position, and covers her ears with her hands - the sound doesn’t stop. 

Rose tamps down the panic that is threatening to overwhelm her, as she looks around, trying to find the Doctor. He’s nowhere to be seen, and Rose feels hers eyes sting. She will  _not_  cry. She blinks furiously, and shakes her head. The ringing seems to be dissipating and she’s starting to be able to hear her own ragged breathing and the thundering of her heartbeat. 

She gets to her feet, and turns around in a slow circle. The devastation is incredible. All around her, buildings are flattened into nothing, and brick and mortar and stone is strewn around in jagged piles. There’s the scent of smoke in the air, and a pall of dust hangs over everything. She still can’t hear anything except her own heartbeat. 

Hands grab her shoulders and Rose startles hard, flinching and yelping loudly, but even still, she can barely make it out. She turns around, flailing arms caught by rough hands and her wild gaze caught by stormy eyes. 

The Doctor gentles her into his embrace, gathering her in his arms as he holds her tightly against him. After a moment, he pulls away and looks down at her in concern. His lips move, but she can’t hear what he’s saying and she shakes her head, motioning to her ears. 

The Doctor’s eyes widen, and he digs in the pocket of his jacket, pulling out the sonic. He aims it at one ear then the other and all of a sudden sound rushes back in. There are sirens and the wails of injured people and the crackle of fire, and the creak and slide of tumbling stone. It all fades to white noise when the Doctor speaks. 

“Rose,” is all he says, but Rose thinks she can hear symphonies in the sound of his voice. “Are you okay?” He asks, and she can hear the way his voice is rough around the edges, like he’s been calling her name and she hasn’t been answering. 

“I’m alright,” she says, “I think. What happened?” 

The Doctor says nothing, just gathers her into his arms again, and they stand in silence, together. 


	5. C - A Moment's Respite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten/Rose, hurt/comfort. Written for a tumblr prompt.

It’s quiet now. The moon is rising from the southern horizon and beside her, the Doctor sleeps. Above them, the sky is a vault of stars - strange, foreign constellations litter the heavens and Rose watches them turn over head. 

They’ve spent most of the day running, first headlong into danger and then headlong out of it. The Doctor’s completely spent, but Rose is too wired to sleep. She’s keyed up from the narrow escape they have the singed hair and grime-covered clothes to show for. 

Rose stretches her arms over her head, trying to work out the stiffness in her shoulders. She’d basically carried the Doctor for the last mile, since he hadn’t bothered to tell her he was bleeding until he’d stumbled and nearly fallen. She’d found them a mostly dry spot to hide out until morning, and the Doctor had haltingly walked her through using the sonic to stitch the wound in his side before he’d passed out. 

Now, he’s sleeping, but it’s not restful - his eyes roam beneath closed lids and his brow is furrowed deeply. Rose grabs for his hand, taking it between both of hers. Like magic, his face smooths and he seems to sink into a deeper sort of rest. She eases herself down beside him, careful of his injury and rests her head against his shoulder. 

She tries and fails to stifle a yawn. She’ll just close her eyes, just rest for a moment, she thinks. 


	6. Sorcery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten/Rose. It's magic what she does to him.

It’s magic, what she does to him. He can find no other explanation. Nearly a thousand years of life, both linear and non, and there is no other explanation for it other than sorcery. 

Her spell is subtle at first, nor more than a hint of what’s to come.

Her smile; tongue-in-her-teeth-gorgeous, makes him weak in the knees. Superior Time Lord physiology be damned, he can hardly stand when she’s grinning at him. Especially when she does that thing where her smile turns just this side of smug, like she knows exactly what she’s doing to him. 

Her laugh - and he knows it’s cliché, but - it sounds like bells and like joy and jubilation and Rassilon, it makes him ache to hear it all the time. He wants to always be the one that makes her laugh. He wants all of her laughter; the giggles, the full body laughs, the silly snorts she makes when she’s laughing so hard she can hardly breathe, and he can’t help but feel irrationally jealous when anyone else makes her throw that blonde head back and wrap her arms around her middle. 

The magic holds him tighter as she burrows further into his hearts, and he finds himself quite happy to ignore the niggling voice in the back of his mind that reminds him in a drone; “ _this is not what Time Lords do. You are above these earthly desires_.” 

He doesn’t pretend to understand why his hearts pound when she reaches for his hand, nor does he think he’ll ever manage not to grab on for dear life whenever she does it. Her hand in his is utterly perfect, and he’s never, ever, going to let go. 

When she curls up beside him on the couch in front of the library fireplace, exhausted from a day spent running for their lives, and he’s treated to the pleasure of watching her sleep, he knows he’s absolutely done for. There is no one else like Rose Tyler, and she has woven the tightest of spells around him.


	7. Occult

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rose. An AU where she's not quite human, and more than just a little witchy.

In a forest glade, standing at a stone altar, hands dripping with blood, she disembowels the rabbit and draws the entrails out. The smell hits her nose and Rose sucks in a breath through her mouth. Behind her, her sisters move in the rhythm that spirals the power to the middle of the glen. 

Rose can feel it, the swirling steps of the dance winding tighter and tighter as she drags the blade of her knife across the palm of her hand, her blood mingling with the rabbits as a cloud scuds across the moon and throws them all into darkness.  She hears the steady drip of her blood, and knows she’s cut through the heart line. She can feel her heart stuttering and stumbling as the darkness thickens. She stumbles back from the altar and for a moment, in the crystal clarity of a vision, she Sees. 

_She is standing in the midst of a ruined city. Buildings tumbled by time and weather and war, crumbling to nothing as the forest retakes what the people stole. It’s empty, and quiet.  She sees the temple, it’s columns eroded and the pictographs on the walls faded, but she can see the story in the pictures. The golden goddess, burning with a fierce light as she stands between the people and the wall of water come to ruin their city. She shines the light of her torch deeper into the temple and finds the stone altar, ancient blood staining the white stone as she presses her palm to the center._

The vision leaves her shaken. 


	8. Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nine/Rose. Hard angst. Character death. Written for a tumblr prompt.

He bends down, there’s blood on the leaves near his waist. It’s wet still. But not fresh. It’s gone tacky in the air, but it still smells like it was just left behind; a coppery tang on the back of his tongue. He’d almost missed it in his haste. He’s been tracking her for hours now; the jungle is dense around him and the heat is incredible. 

He stands, silent among the trees and scans the undergrowth for any signs that she passed through here. She won’t be hiding her passage, so her spool should be easy to find. His eyes catch on broken branches and he notches the tree beside him to mark his own trail. 

There’s more blood here and there along the trail, and then he catches a welcome break, foot prints in the soft earth as they near the banks of a wide river. The foot prints mark out a stumbling gait, and he lifts his gaze to her arm-level and finds what he’s looking for. A bloody hand print on the bark of a nearby tree. 

She can’t be far now, the blood on the tree is much fresher then anywhere else on her trail, and the splatter is much more frequent as she’s slowed down. She’ll be flagging now, and he speeds his steps as much as he dares in order not to miss her trail. 

When he finds her, night is just beginning to fall. She’s sitting against an outcropping of rock next to the river, head hanging down, blonde hair a curtain over her face. She’s not moving. His hearts drop into his stomach as he breaks into a run. 

“Rose!” He shouts, panic making his blood fizz in his veins. He throws himself to the ground next to her, and she blinks at him. Her eyes are dim, whiskey almost washed out by the gloom and the blood loss. 

“Doctor?” she croaks, and he grins at her, gently laying her down so he can find the injury. “S’it bad?” she slurs, and he catches a glimpse of the sheen of blood in her mouth as she speaks. He manages to suppress a shudder of barely concealed terror when he finds it.

The arrow’d hit her in the soft part of her side, and the shaft had broken off sometime during her flight. She hisses as his hands move over her abdomen and he can’t quite manage to choke off the sound of despair that bubbles up in his throat. 

“It’s bad isn’t it?” Her voice is thready. 

“No, no, it’s fine.” He’s lying, and she knows. If they were closer to the TARDIS, maybe he’d have enough time. As it is, he can’t carry her without jostling the arrowhead inside her and doing more damage then what was already done while she was running. 

“I’m cold,” she says, and he shrugs off his coat to cover her with it. “The stars are so pretty,” she says, and the Doctor looks up at the sky with her, at least this way he can hide his tears from her. “They’re so close,” she whispers, “like I could reach out and touch them.” Her hand lifts weakly as if to reach out to the sky. The Doctor catches it in one of his. He doesn’t want to lose her like this. Can’t bear the thought of rattling around the universe alone again. 

“Shhh,” he says, “just be easy, Rose, don’t talk. You’re going to be okay. It’s all going to be alright. Just watch the stars.” 

Silence settles between them, and grows deeper still when the only sound becomes the double thump of his own heart and the rasp of his breath in his ears. 


	9. Brimstone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clara x Rose. Written for a tumblr prompt.

“Smells terrible up here,” Clara said as she climbed up the rocky path behind Rose. 

“Brimstone,” Rose answered, without turning around. 

The ground under them trembled and little stones skittered beneath their feet. 

“I don’t really think this is the best place for a hike, Rose.” 

This time Rose did turn around. “Honestly Clara, it’s just a volcano. Not even scheduled to erupt for another hundred years.”

“You sound just like him sometimes,” Clara groused, picking up her pace she could walk next to Rose on the now, wider path. 

Rose stopped at the edge of the crater, and looked down. Far below them was a seething mass of molten rock, and the glow threw strange shadows on Rose’s face. 

“Bet he never took you to the mouth of a volcano, did he?” Rose asked, corner of her mouth quirked up. 

Clara had to agree. The Doctor had never taken her to the mouth of a volcano. And now that she was here, she wasn’t sure she disagreed with the notion of not visiting them too closely. She could feel the heat and the air tasted acrid on her tongue. 

“Can we go back down to the spa now? I want spend the rest of the day in one of those geothermal pools.” 

“Oh Clara, my Clara,” Rose said, taking her hand and turning them both around for the long trek back to the lodge, “we can  _absolutely_  spend the rest of the day in one of those geothermal pools.” 

The heat Clara felt now was not at all caused by the volcano. 


	10. Lunar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten x Rose, Werewolf!Rose. Written for a tumblr prompt.

“The moon’s cycle on this planet is 15 days Rose!”

“I know,” she grouses, “I can tell, remember?”

And she can.  _Oh_  she can. She can feel the tug of the moon in her blood, she can taste the copper in the back of her throat and she can  _smell_  him. Christ, she never remembers that the first thing that changes is her sense of smell. And dear Lord, does the Doctor ever smell  _good._

He smells like home, like something spicy, like something warm, like the air before a thunderstorm, like the vastness of space, and the never-ending river of time. It makes her blood hum. It makes her mouth water. It makes her hands ache to be holding a piece of him.

“Rose?” The Doctor asks, his voice a bit squeakier than normal, and she notices he’s back pedaling towards the console. “Are you feeling alright?”

“I’m fine,” she purrs, and advances on him. She licks her lips, and then runs her tongue across her lengthening canines. “Absolutely fine.” 

“I think,” the Doctor stops, swallows, begins again, “it’s time for the Zero Room.” 

When Rose wakes up, she’s in the Zero Room alone. And she’s ravenous. 


	11. Crypt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten x Rose. Written for a tumblr prompt.

The crypt is dark, as crypts are wont to be. And it smells. Like something dead. Which, Rose thinks, is probably apt. Something crunches under her shoe and she shudders, and resolutely does not look down. The torch the Doctor is carrying casts a wan glow in a circle on the floor in front of them. 

“It should be just through here,” he says, and steps ahead of her so she has to hurry to catch up. 

“What exactly are we lookin’ for?” Rose asks, as she follows the Doctor through an archway into the next chamber. 

“This,” he says, and steps aside so Rose can see too. 

The chamber is cavernous, and it’s edges disappear into darkness outside of the sweep of the Doctor’s torch. In the centre, there’s a column that comes up to about waist height and sitting on it, basking in the glow of a beam of light from somewhere so high up Rose can’t see it’s source, is something. 

“What is it?” 

“The key!” The Doctor’s voice is jubilant and he bounces (there’s no other word for it) over towards it. Rose approaches more cautiously. 

“The key to what exactly?” Rose asks. She looks down at the thing on the plinth. 

It was sort of golden, kind of silver, a bit of something else sparkly, and not at all shaped like a key. It looks like nothing really, just a bit of gaudy prettiness, but the Doctor is rapt, and he reaches out tentatively to touch it. Rose is swamped by a sudden, overwhelming fear. 

“No!” she shouts, and reaches out to knock the Doctor’s hands away. 

She’s too late. 


	12. 31. “You lied to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nine x Rose, fluff.

“You lied to me,” he says, and Rose looks up at him, still pressed up against his side, her arm snug around his waist. 

“Did I?” She asks, and the Doctor looks down at her, blue eyes clear as the fair morning, completely guileless. A girl could get lost in those, Rose thinks to herself, and then feels her mouth curving up into a smile to match his own. 

“Said you’d never done this before.” The Doctor looks briefly down at the card in his other hand. Her score handily outmatches his own, and Rose suppresses a giggle. 

“I’ve never done it with  _you_ ,” she says, and leans up onto her tip toes to kiss his cheek. “Rematch?”

The Doctor shrugs, and Rose picks up her putter and heads back to the little hut at the edge of the mini-putt to get them another set of golf balls. “Won’t take it easy on you this time, girl,” the Doctor says to himself, and then marches back towards the first hole, determined that she will not beat him again. 


	13. Your Hand in Mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the [legendslikestardust](http://legendslikestardust.tumblr.com) weekly drabble theme. The theme that week was 'electric'. 
> 
> Nine x Rose

From the first time their hands meet, it is electric. The current between them zings, and Rose’s fingers tingle with in anticipation of  the next time he’ll wrap her hand in his. She wonders if he feels it, too.

Rose reaches for his hand the first time they step across the threshold of the TARDIS under some new sky. “Better with two,” she says, and he grins, and takes her hand in his.

Later, he takes her hand in a basement in Wales. Later still, he leads her out, across the ice of a frozen world, and Rose follows, unafraid.


	14. 36. 'I don't want to be alone right now.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nine x Rose, post-nightmare comfort.

“I don’t,” Rose begins, and the Doctor looks up from his book. Rose is standing at the door of the library, worrying the hem of her sleep shirt, and biting her lip. The Doctor reaches up and takes off his wire-rimmed glasses, setting them on top of the closed cover his book. 

“You don’t what?” He asks, and Rose lets her shirt hem drop, before purposefully moving into the library. The Doctor shifts over to allow her to sink down beside him on the couch. Rose settles gingerly, drawing her feet up until she can hug herself around her calves, chin resting on her knees. 

The Doctor looks her over with a critical eye, noting that she’s a bit paler than usual and that her eyes are almost over-bright. Something is wrong. 

“I don’t want to be alone right now,” she says, mumbling into her knees. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“I just…” Rose trails off, and looks up at him from underneath her lashes, sooty with leftover mascara and then breaks his gaze and looks down at her knees again. “I’m sorry,” she says, “I’ll go. I didn’t mean to disturb you–” 

“Now wait, just a minute,” the Doctor protests, reaching out to keep her from getting up. Rose looks up again, and this time he catches her eyes with his. “Tell me, Rose,” he says (pleads, that’s pleading he’s doing, says the voice in his head, but the Doctor ignores it). 

“It’s stupid,” Rose says, but the Doctor shakes his head. 

“I promise it’s not,” he says, and takes a hold of one of her hands. Her fingers are like ice. 

“I had a nightmare,” Rose mumbles, and the Doctor nods. 

“D’you– do you want to talk about it?” the Doctor asks, and Rose shakes her head. “Okay.” The Doctor watches her for a moment before speaking again. She has an oddly hunted look about her, and he notices that she keeps glancing around the room, her eyes snagging on the shadowed corners. The Doctor comes to a decision. 

He begins to tell her about the book he’s reading, keeping his voice to a low rumble. He talks about the plot, about the character development, about what he thinks might happen next. Soon enough, Rose has curled into his side, her head pillowed on his thigh, and her hand gripping his knee. Her eyes are shut, and the Doctor risks smoothing her hair from her face, before picking up his book, and settling his glasses back onto his nose. 

He’ll just have to finish the book now, so he can tell her about the rest in the morning. 


	15. 'Is that a threat?'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten x Rose, water guns.

“Is that a threat?” The Doctor asks, from the other side of the console. Rose grins, and raises the water gun she’d nicked from the closet in the room with the pool, and levels it at him. 

“Do ya like my gun?” she asks in return, and the Doctor’s eyebrows climb into his hairline before he manages to get them under control and his eyes narrow beneath them. 

“I’ll have you know,” he begins, taking a step to his left. Rose matches him by moving one step to the right. Between them, the time rotor glows, incandescent blue. “I have won  _severa_ _l_ water fights in my day.” The Doctor brandishes his own water pistol, and Rose can’t help the laugh that bubbles up from her chest. 

Compared to her water gun, with it’s additional compartments and pump action, the Doctor’s might as well be a squirt gun. The Doctor isn’t distracted by her laughter, and moves purposefully to his left again, while Rose shuffles to the right. 

“To first blood?” Rose asks, knowing she’s closest to the door out of the console room into the rest of the ship, and she barely waits for the Doctor to nod before sprinting for the door, firing wildly behind her as she goes. 


	16. 14. 'Are you trying to seduce me?'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten x Rose, seduction via bad movie science.

“Are you trying to seduce me?” Rose asks, when she can finally get a word in edgewise around the Doctor’s meandering lecture on the science of the movie they’ve just watched and why it’s wrong. Rose stretches out on her side of the couch, her toes poking into his thigh. She smiles, tongue-touched. 

The Doctor splutters in protest. Rose laughs. 

“Oh Doctor,” she says, voice turned to a breathless husk and she licks her lips. The Doctor tracks the movement of her tongue with avid attention. “You know I get all hot and bothered when you talk about event horizons and time dilation.” 

“I’m not– Rose, really, I’m  _not_ –” 

“Methinks,” she says, drawing her legs back towards herself, and then leaning forward over them, “the gentleman doth protest too much.” 

“I’m  _telling_  you,” the Doctor says, pointedly ignoring how Rose is now crawling across the couch to press up against him. “The science is all wrong, have none of these people even  _seen_  a black hole?”

“I have,” Rose says, “and I also saw a bunch of other  _fascinating_  phenomena that night.” Her mouth is right next to the Doctor’s ear. “Do you want me to tell you about my observations?” Rose pitches the last word low and the Doctor can’t help the shudder that rockets up his spine. “Or would you prefer a field demonstration?” 

The Doctor swallows. “Oh,” he says, voice strangled now that her hands are tugging at his belt. “Visual learner, me. I’ll definitely need a demonstration.” 

He catches Rose’s grin just before he closes his eyes as she leans in and shortly after that, all notions of the validity of cinema science disappear entirely from his brain. 


	17. "I think we need to have a talk."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten x Rose. Fluff.

“I think we need to have a talk,” Rose said, sinking down beside the Doctor on the jumpseat. The Doctor looked up from the jumble of wires in his lap, and Rose couldn’t help the grin that stole across her face. 

The Doctor had a smear of engine grease across his cheek, and another smudge near his hairline. He raised an eyebrow at Rose’s smile. “What do you want to talk about?” 

“You’ve got a little something–” Rose said, reaching out to swipe her thumb across the Doctor’s cheek. His brown eyes widened in alarm, but he didn’t evade her touch. 


	18. Breaktime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [dwsmutfest](http://dwsmutfest.tumblr.com) for their weekly drabble theme. The theme that week was 'keeping quiet'.

“Rose, you’ve got to be quiet.” 

“I can’t be quiet when you’re - _ah_  -” 

The Doctor grins. Rose bites her lip. 

“If you’re too loud, they’ll catch us,” the Doctor warns, mouth close to her ear and breath hot on the side of her neck. His hands are busy between her legs and Rose shudders, feeling the close press of the closet full of coats at her back. 


	19. “Get on your knees. Now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten x Rose, written for a tumblr prompt. A little suggestive.

“Get on your knees,” Rose says, imperious. The Doctor doesn’t move. Rose lifts an eyebrow. “Now.”

There’s a heady rush of power in Rose’s blood as he sinks to the floor. She places a hand on his shoulder, and turns to look at their host. Beneath her fingers, the Doctor shifts, and she squeezes her hand to remind him to be still. 

“As you can see, he is generally well-trained,” Rose says, lifting her chin so her voice carries. “Unfortunately, discipline is a practice and must be kept up at all times.” The surrounding crowd twitters in amusement and Rose lets her mouth curve into a small smile. She smooths her face back into a prim mask before speaking again. “Please accept my humble apologies for his misbehaviour, oh gracious one.” 

“Your apology is accepted,” says the leader, and Rose inclines her head in his direction. His plumage is elaborate and richly coloured. “You may leave us.” 

Rose takes the dismissal for what it is, and turns on her heel. The Doctor gets to his feet, and Rose strides out of the grand hall, the Doctor following a careful three steps behind and to her right. 

When they round the corner to where they left the TARDIS, Rose turns. The Doctor is watching her with a curious expression on his face. His eyes are dark, and when he takes her proffered hand, it’s with the inertia of his steps and Rose lets him back her up against the TARDIS door. 

“Rose,” he mutters, nuzzling at her neck, lips insistent along her skin. Rose arches back, so she can feel the lean line of him against her. The Doctor presses her back, and Rose brings her hands up, sinking her fingers into the hair at the base of his skull. 

The Doctor lets her pull his head up, but he slots their mouths together and Rose lets him press his advantage. The Doctor’s hands settle on her waist, squeezing the thin fabric of her sundress. 

They break apart, breathing hard, and Rose smiles. “Liked that, did you?” she asks, and the Doctor grins, sheepish. Rose can feel him, hard against her hip. “Who knew that my bossy voice would get you all bothered,” Rose says, and the Doctor’s eyes close as he bites back a groan. “Would you get on your knees for me again, Doctor?” 

“Oh, Rose,” the Doctor says, and slams his key into the TARDIS door lock, pushing it open and walking her back through it, “I’d do more than that.” 


	20. 71. “Do I look like I’ve moved on?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dimension hopping!Rose angst + Jackie. Written for a tumblr prompt.

“Do I look like I’ve moved on?” Rose asks, whirling to face her mother. 

“Rose,” Jackie says, soothing. 

“No, mum,” Rose argues, “I’m not giving up on him. I lo–I love him.” The tears spring unbidden to Rose’s eyes. She blinks furiously to try and dispel them. She will not cry. 

“Honey, he’s gone,” Jackie says, curling an arm around Rose’s shoulders. 

Rose shrugs off the comfort. “He’s not, he’s trapped, in another universe. He’s not dead. He’s alone, he’s so alone, oh mum, he’s all by himself. I’ve left him,” Rose sobs, “I promised him I wouldn’t, and I did.” 

Rose sinks into the couch of her flat, arms wrapped around her middle as she tries to quell the sobs that shake her frame. Jackie sits next to her, and after a brief moment, pulls Rose in for a hug. Rose dissolves into her mother’s embrace, and Jackie rests her chin on her daughter’s head, looking up to the ceiling. 

 _I hope you know what you did, alien boy,_  Jackie thinks,  _I hope you know how much she loves you._


	21. 55.  “Sorry doesn’t fix everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten x Rose, angst. Written for a tumblr prompt.

“Sorry doesn’t fix everything, Doctor,” Rose says, and the Doctor’s face falls. Rose sighs, and turns away from him at the console, bringing her hands up to run through the tangle of her hair. She takes a deep breath and turns back around. 

The Doctor puts up his hands, placating. Rose shakes her head, tightly, once. “No,” she says, “you didn’t tell me what was going on. You left me in the dark.” 

“I was just–” 

“Stop it. I know. You were just trying to keep me safe. But you have to stop doing that. You have to stop deciding for me. We’re partners you and I, it’s time you treated me like one.” 

“Rose,” the Doctor pleads, reaching for her. Rose evades his touch, and wraps her hands around her middle instead. The Doctor makes a frustrated noise and drives his own hands through his hair, sending it in haphazard directions. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’m so glad you’re okay, I never meant–I never thought this would happen.” 

“Well, it did.” Rose says, and then she sighs. “I’m going to bed,” she says, and leaves the Doctor standing in the console room, alone. 


	22. Round and Round We Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [Legends Like Stardust](http://legendslikestardust.tumblr.com)'s drabble theme. The theme that week was 'kitchen disaster'.

Rose comes home (and wow, doesn’t that still make her stomach swoop with giddy nerves?) after a long day at the lab, to find that the kitchen has exploded. 

“Uh,” she says, as she steps through the door, “Doctor?” 

The man in question is no where to be found. Rose turns in a circle, silently surveying the wreckage that used to be their kitchen, and wonders, for the eight hundred and seventy-fifth time in their life together on this side of the Void, what in the ever-loving-fuck is going on. 

“Oh!” The Doctor says, behind her. Rose startles (just a little, she’s Torchwood-trained after all) and turns around. He’s freshly showered. “You’re home early?” 

“Not really,” Rose says. The Doctor looks past her at the clock on the wall. (It has remained largely unaffected by the disaster)

“Ah,” the Doctor says, and then takes Rose’s hand to lead her out of the kitchen. He leans in, pecks her on the mouth and then makes a show of plucking his keys off the peg on the wall. “Why don’t we go to the chippy you like for dinner? My treat.” 

(Rose manages not to laugh at him when he realises he has forgotten his wallet after they arrive at the chippy, because oh, doesn’t this just remind her of the day he blew up her job and started them on this crazy adventure together?)

(They call Jackie’s favourite handyman in the morning and then quietly disappear to Aruba for the next month, and Rose puts her foot down, unequivocally ending any further kitchen-based experiments.

“I like my kitchen the way it is, Doctor, please stop trying to animate the microwave.” 

“But  _Rose–”_

“No.” 

“Fine. But that means no best-in-the-seven-systems hot cocoa.” 

“The Tesco’s brand is really not that terrible. You should give it a try.” 

“Ugh. No. That is not cocoa, it is something that wishes to be cocoa in it’s next life, and that is frankly, an unlikely outcome.” 

“ _Doctor_.”)


	23. "Just leave me alone."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nine x Rose, written for a prompt on tumblr.

“Just go,” Rose mumbles into her mug of tea. 

“Rose, I –” 

“Just leave me  _alone_ ,” Rose says, “please Doctor.” 

“If you really want me to go,” the Doctor hedges, and Rose looks up. Whiskey-coloured eyes are bloodshot and the bruises beneath them are like smudged ink. Her chin wobbles and the Doctor moves. 

Rose comes apart in his arms. She dissolves and the Doctor holds on for dear life. 

Today had been a hard day - one of those days where not everyone lives - and the Doctor should have known better than to leave Rose to see to herself without him.

“It’s not fair,” Rose says, her voice muffled into his shoulder. His jumper is damp with her tears. 

“I know Rose,” the Doctor says, and cradles the back of her head in his palm, “I know.” 


	24. "Why do you have this in your closet?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tentoo x Rose, written for a tumblr prompt.

“Hey Rose,” the Doctor called from down the hall of the flat they’d moved into once the dust had settled after Bad Wolf Bay redux. “Can you come here a sec?” 

Rose leaned around the door frame. The Doctor was standing in their closet, looking perplexed. 

“What is it Doctor?” 

“I’m just wondering,” he said, turning around to face her, “why you have  _this_  in your closet?” 

 _This_  was a long brown coat, with a wide collar and a double breast of tortoiseshell buttons up the front. 

“Ah,” Rose said, stepping into the room. “Well.” She reached out and took the coat from him, tossing it’s hangar behind her onto the bed before settling it over her shoulders. “I missed yours, and decided I needed one of my own.” She twirled in a little circle. “What do you think?” 

The Doctor stared at her. 


	25. “Sometimes, I wish you died.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten x Rose. Dimension Hopping Rose. Angst. Written for a tumblr prompt.

He doesn’t go the first year. The memorial isn’t finished yet and the wound is too fresh. **  
**

He decides, after that, that he won’t go on any of the milestone remembrances, too many people.

The first time he does go, it’s for the 17th anniversary, and he stands, bouquet of daisies clutched in one hand. He barely breathes. Her name is carved in the black marble, all sharp edges that do no justice to her softness.

He leaves in a rush, stumbling blindly back to the TARDIS, where he throws her into the vortex without a destination.

He doesn’t realise he didn’t leave the flowers until he makes it to the galley for a cup of tea. He bins them viciously and decides to go and find a war to throw himself in front of.

The next time he goes, it’s almost an accident. He’s in London, chasing down an escaped Spirux cat, and the city seems to go quiet in a wave. His superior Time Lord hearing picks up the trumpet’s lonely call, and his feet carry him, almost against his will.

The crowd gathered at the memorial is massive, and silent as the grave. 

The moment of silence is broken by the low incoming rumble of group of five jets flying in tight formation.The crowd seems to inhale all as one when the jets fly over, plumes of white condensation trails clear against the brilliant blue sky. 

The Doctor brings his fist to his mouth, biting down hard on his knuckles. He blinks furiously, and turns his gaze to the memorial itself. At the front of the crowd, the Queen sits, accompanied by the prime minister and other senior officials. Someone, he doesn’t know who, comes to the microphone stand and begins reading names. 

He’s got to leave, he thinks, before they say her name. He can’t bear it, he knows, but his feet seem rooted into the earth. He can’t seem to get away, can’t seem to stop looking at the hulking black stone and knowing exactly where Rose’s name is carved. 

He stands, as if carved from marble himself while the speaker goes on and on, and eventually another voice picks up the thread, and another, and another. The fourth speaker is who says Rose’s name, and the Doctor flinches when he hears it. Even knowing it was coming, even knowing she’s not dead but safely living in another universe, it still hits him like a through-and-through.

Eventually, they finish with the recitation and there’s a release of doves, their wings beating desperately to gain the sky, and finally, it’s over. The crowd disperses slowly, but the Doctor remains, unable to get his feet to carry him away. 

It’s not until almost everyone is gone that he is finally able to turn around, and make the long trek back to the TARDIS. 

The console room is welcoming, and the soft hum of his ship soothes him as he enters. He makes it as far as the console itself before his control wavers, and then, leaning hard against his ship, against the only anchor he has left in this world, he lets himself have his moment of grief.

“Sometimes,” the Doctor says, to his empty ship, voice hollow and aching. “I wish you died.” 


	26. “Alright, I’ll leave you alone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tentoo x Rose. Angst. Not really AU? Logical extrapolation of canon maybe?

“Alright,” he says, “I’ll leave you alone.” Rose doesn’t look up from the datapad in her hands, and so the Doctor leaves her office, closing the door quietly behind him. The soft  _snick_  sounds deafening in the silence. 

He knows she’s busy, knows she’s working ‘round the clock, trying to keep Torchwood up and running and trying to fill her step-father’s shoes. 

Pete.

The Doctor sighs and scrubs a hand down his face, before slumping onto the stool at his lab bench. 

Even thinking the name sends a stabbing ache through his chest. The man had been nearly a father to him, welcoming him with open arms when he and Rose had been delivered to each other on a beach in Norway. 

And now, now Pete is gone. Left his family prematurely in this universe too, but at least, the Doctor thinks, Jackie got to love him again, and Rose got to know him. Thinking of Rose reminds him of what he’d gone to her office for. She hasn’t left work before nearly midnight this whole week, and he knows she isn’t eating, and certainly the cold side of the bed speaks to how she isn’t sleeping. 

The Doctor is worried. Grief is something he is possibly too familiar with, and something he wishes dearly that he could have protected Rose from, could have saved a small bit of her innocence, but he has always been too late for that. 

He thinks back to their most recent conversation about how she’s managing and the fierce glare she’d leveled him with he’d pressed her about her habits and the lack thereof. The Doctor had capitulated immediately, not wanting to push her any harder, because he could see the glassy sheen of tears in her eyes behind the grim line of her mouth. 

The Doctor puts his head in his hands, takes a deep breath, and then sits back up. He’s got to get her to leave before nine tonight, even if he has to carry her out bodily. He stands, plants his palms against the lab bench and nods to himself. 

He goes back up to Rose’s office, prepared for the argument he is sure is coming. When he pushes open her door, she’s slumped over on her couch, a stack of files having spilled out of her lap into a river of paper on the floor. She’s asleep. 

The Doctor hums softly as he gently takes the rest of the files out of her hands and rearranges her on the couch so she won’t get a crick in her neck. She wakes, barely, as he’s curling up with her, and he brushes her fringe out of her eyes. Rose’s mouth turns up in a ghost of her usual smile and the Doctor leans in to press a kiss to her forehead. 


	27. 61. Morning Sex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten x Rose. Morning sex. Very loose definition of 'morning'.

It’s early, or rather, very late. They’ve just stumbled back to the TARDIS, after a week spent revolutionising a colony against their corrupt leadership and both of them are nearly dead on their feet. 

Rose slumps against the console as the Doctor wearily pilots them into a lazy orbit around the local moon.

“Let’s go to bed,” the Doctor murmurs, reaching for Rose’s hand and tugging her up from where she is resting against the console. 

“Don’t wanna move,” Rose slurs, and the Doctor tugs harder. She lurches forward and falls into his arms. He stumbles back, and jostles her until she’s leaning against him, and he’s got one arm snugged against her waist. They lean on each other as he walks them down the corridor towards a bed. 

He doesn’t pay any mind to where he’s going, just picks the first door the TARDIS puts in their way and draws Rose through it with him, and then gently pushes her towards the bed. She strips as she moves, and he watches her. She’s forgotten he’s here, and she’s careless and graceless and it’s beautiful. 

He catches her up before she tumbles into bed, and runs his hands up the length of her arms, and then up into her hair, to pull her face towards him to kiss. The kiss is sloppy with exhaustion, and she collapses backwards at the barest suggestion of pressure from him and he follows her down. 

The Doctor strips, divesting himself of shirt and tie and trousers and pants, and Rose arches under his questing hands, murmuring something nonsensical just under her breath. He chuckles and leans down, pressing his mouth to the join of her neck and shoulder and Rose shudders - full body and liquid - against him. 

“Doctor,” she moans, “’m tired.” 

“I know,” he says, and his hands still. “We can sleep if you like.” 

“No,” she says, “not too tired for this.” 

He takes her softly - his hips barely move against hers and he tips them over the edge so gently, Rose barely has time to react. Her mouth drops open on an ‘o’ of quiet surprise, and then she goes boneless beneath him. 

She’s asleep before he gets the blankets up over them, and he kisses her forehead, before sinking down behind her, and pressing his nose into the skin of her shoulder.


	28. 22. “Do you have to swear so much?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten x Rose. Written for a tumblr prompt.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“Rose, honestly, do you have to swear so much?” the Doctor asks, poking his head in through the door to her room. Rose whirls around, and the Doctor takes a step back. 

Rose deflates. The Doctor notices then that she is leaning against her dresser, one foot dangling above the ground. 

“Stubbed my toe,” she says, in answer to his questioning look. 

“Are you okay?” The Doctor asks, stepping back into her room, and moving swiftly to her side. “Would you like me to take a look at it?” 

“Naw,” Rose answers, “it’s fine, just smarts a little.” 

“I could kiss it better?” 

“No,” Rose says, laughing, “it’s fine now. Could do with a cuppa though, if you’re feeling like you need to fuss.” 

The Doctor shakes his head, but Rose looks up at him, and there was never any hope that the answer would be anything other than yes. 

“One cuppa, coming right up,” he says, and turns to go. Before he can get more than a step away, she reaches out, and takes his hand. 

“Better with two I think,” she says and he couldn’t agree more. 


	29. 1.  “I think I’m falling in love with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten x Rose. Fluff. Written for a tumblr prompt.

The Doctor thinks about it when he’s alone in the console room after Rose has gone to bed.

When, exactly, did he start making sure that her preferred shampoo and preferred hand cream were available in all bathrooms on the TARDIS? When, exactly, did he start making sure that the brand of tea she likes and the boxes of cookies she grew up eating are always stocked in the galley? 

He decides it probably started before this body, because the galley was already stocked, he just keeps it up now. What does this realisation even mean, he wonders. 

He looks up to the ceiling of the TARDIS, as if it might have another solution to this question. The TARDIS has no answer except a vague notion of smugness that drifts across the back of his mind. The Doctor arches an eyebrow and the smugness turns distinctly to  _I told you so._

And then it hits him. 

He’s in love with her. 

The realisation comes hard and fast and it swamps his synapses as his mind re-orders itself around this paradigm shift. Now that he’s realised, it seems childish to think it was anything else -  _of course_ he’s in love with her, there is no other conclusion (logical or otherwise) and the Doctor makes a conscious effort not to reel back from the feeling, but to let it sink into his very marrow. 

He decides he likes it - the soft, molten warmth under his sternum and the way his hands itch to hold hers. He wants to go and wake her up and tell her, and he’s half-way to the door of the console room before he remembers about Rose and her number one rule: 

“Don’t wake me up before five in the morning - Earth time Doctor - unless the TARDIS is careening into a black hole and we’re going to die in the next 15 seconds.” 

She’d paused, and  _looked_ at him. 

“That’s Earth seconds Doctor.” 

The Doctor doesn’t wake Rose up before her relative clock says five am anymore. He wonders though, if this counts as an emergency. It seems  _emergent_  that he declare these feelings, before he starts to second guess himself. He weighs the options and decides that it’s close enough to five (it’s not, at all, close enough, but the Doctor ignores the  _ping_  of warning in the back of his mind) and all but runs to Rose’s room. 

The door is ajar when he gets there, and he slips in, thankful that the TARDIS at least, is on his side for once, and sinks down beside Rose. She stirs slightly. 

“Doctor?” she asks, voice muffled by her pillow, “s’that you?”

“Yes,” he says, and then, “I think I’m in love with you.” 

“Love you too, Doctor,” Rose says, and then rolls back over and goes back to sleep. 

It’s all very anti-climatic, but the Doctor’s not sure he should have expected anything different - considering his grand realisation was brought about by biscuits and tea and shampoo. Rose has probably loved him all along and was just waiting for him to figure it out for himself. 

He smooths a hand down the back of her head, feeling the rich weight of her hair and then stands. He has power couplings and a temporal distortion arrester to fix before he can take Rose out on their next adventure. 

He can remind her that he loves her in the morning, over tea in the galley, and she will look at him with those soft, brown eyes he loves, and her hands will curl around her mug - the blue one that changes to show the milky way in a spill of stars when you put tea in it - and she’ll smile. 

He hums to himself as he heads back to the console room. 


	30. Ball and Chain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten x Rose. Gone back in time to meet Janis Joplin. Written for [timepetalsprompts](http://timepetalsprompts.tumblr.com)'s weekly drabble theme. The theme that week was 'concerts'.

_Monterey, California. 1967._

The arena is packed.

“Who’re we here to see Doctor?” Rose asks.

“Shh,” he says, not unkindly, “she’s coming.”

There’s a smattering of applause as the woman in question joins the band on stage, and Rose wonders who this woman is - mousy brown hair in haphazard waves and enough jewellery for three people - but when she starts to sing, Rose feels the world fall away.

In between songs, Rose asks the Doctor who she is. The Doctor rambles for a while about his coat until Rose prods him back to the topic at hand. “Oh Rose,” he says, “that’s Janis Joplin.”

They stay for her whole set.

Afterwards, the Doctor sneaks them backstage. “I just want to say thanks,” he says and Rose is bewildered until Janis catches sight of the Doctor and squeals in delight.

“You kept the coat!” she exclaims, and the Doctor grins.

“Yeah mama, of course,” he tells her, genuine affection in his voice, and Rose hangs back, not wanting to intrude. The Doctor looks around to Rose, and beckons her forward. “Want to introduce you to someone,” he says to Janis, and then takes Rose’s hand. “This is my – this is Rose.”

Janis smiles and Rose tentatively smiles back. No one mentions the Doctor’s slip.

“Hi Rose,” Janis says, and with a look at the Doctor that speaks volumes about his manners, continues; “I’m Janis. Want to come and hang with the band for a while?”


	31. "You look really sexy when you do that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten x Rose, written for a tumblr prompt.

Rose watches him. She’s always watching him if she’s honest - but she pays especially close attention when he’s tinkering - because the Doctor’s tics as he works through the problem are some of her favourite Doctorisms.

He runs his hands through his hair, tugging on the ends and mussing it into haphazard spikes and he always ends up with grease on his chin, and more on his nose. 

He puts his glasses on and takes them off, and chews on the end of one arm when he’s stumped. 

He tugs at his tie, loosening it, and fiddling with the knot. He rolls up his shirtsleeves - and that was a good day when Rose discovered that particular thinking action. He’s meticulous about making them even and ensuring that the folded over cuffs lie flat. 

“Hand me that spanner Rose,” he says one night, after they’ve saved a Telurian mining colony from some kind of deep space energy vampires and Rose startles out of her reverie. 

“Uh,” she says dumbly, and then looks around for the spanner. Her gaze catches on him instead, those nerdy specs perched on his nose, his hair a disaster and grease on his cheek. 

“You look really sexy when you tinker,” she says, before her brain catches up with her mouth. 

The Doctor starts. 

Rose blushes furiously, she can feel the heat of it all the way up the roots of her hair. “Oh my god! Doctor, I –”

“You think I look sexy when I tinker?” The Doctor asks and there’s something husky in his voice that Rose can’t quite make heads or tails of it. She can do nothing but nod. 

The Doctor walks across to the jump seat, and leans in. Rose gulps, her heart slams against her ribcage, she is sure he can hear exactly what he’s thinking.

“Is it the hair?” he asks, “or maybe it’s the specs? I knew I should have chosen the rounded lenses.” The Doctor sighs, and then steps back. 

“It’s – it’s whenyourolleyoursleevesup,” Rose blurts, and the Doctor lofts one eyebrow. “You know,” Rose goes on, bravely, she thinks, “with the cuffs and the forearms?” 

“The cuffs and the forearms? Rose, are you sure you didn’t get a knock on the head today?” 

“I’m sure,” she says, and then hands him the spanner she has finally located with a heartfelt sigh. 


	32. "Tell me the truth Doctor, does this make me look fat?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten x Rose, silliness. Written for a tumblr prompt.

“Um,” the Doctor started, and then swallowed hard. This was one of those tricky human questions that always landed him in hot water. 

“Well Doctor?” 

The Doctor considered his response. He considered it at great length, with a sweeping glance from the top of Rose’s blonde head, past her teasing grin, down the curving planes of her torso, across the nipped in waist and the aforementioned denim-skirt clad behind, down her lean, strong, legs and then back up again. 

“ _I_  think that skirt looks great,” he said, and Rose grinned at him. “Makes your legs look like they go on for days.” 

Rose blushed prettily at the compliment. 

“I believe, if you’ve finished fishing,” the Doctor said, looking side-long at Rose whose smile turned tongue-touched, “that we have a dinner date to get to.” 

Rose slipped her hand into the crook of his proffered arm. “Lead on good sir,” she said, affecting a posh accent that made the Doctor snort and Rose erupted in giggles. 


	33. Breakfast for Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten x Rose. Written for 

Rose pads down the corridor, eager to see what, exactly, the Doctor is up to at this hour of the morning. She finds him, busy at the stove. Rose hangs back, not wanting to disturb him.

She must, however, make a sound of some sort because he turns around. There is flour all down the front of his apron, and some smeared on his cheek and more in his hair.

“What,” Rose says, in between giggles, “are you doing?”

“Making breakfast,” the Doctor answers, and gestures to the stove.

“You made pancakes!” Rose exclaims and the Doctor grins.

“Want one?” 


	34. Certain Lost Things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten x Rose, angst. Written for [timepetalsprompts](http://timepetalsprompts.tumblr.com)'s weekly drabble theme. The theme that week was 'lost and found'.

Sometimes, when you lose something, the gaping maw left behind in your chest doesn’t tear you apart. Sometimes, when you lose something, the absence of it doesn’t make you reckless and stupid and it doesn’t make you prone to senseless self-sacrifice. **  
**

Sometimes, when you lose something, you don’t see the colour of her hair or the flash of her grin out of the corner of your eye, or hear her voice whispering softly through the dark.

But when you lose something, and you aren’t willing to almost destroy yourself to get it back, did it really mean anything after all? 


	35. These Manic Hours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dimension Hopping!Rose angst. Written for [timepetalsprompts](http://timepetalsprompts.tumblr.com)'s weekly drabble theme. The theme that week was 'obsession'.

They call it an obsession in the gossip rags, because they’ve run out of new pictures of her to plaster all over their technicolour pages. Rose doesn’t see what else they call her, because she is busy discovering the intricacies of how parallel universes fold over each other.

Calls to her phone go unanswered, voicemails go unreturned. She is a no-show at event after event. She is busy unravelling the accepted theories of astrophysics.

She haunts the lab, pouring over data and results and her notes. Living on cheap coffee and cigarettes. Waiting for the moment when everything comes together. 


	36. "Lay down with me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tentoo x Rose. Written for a tumblr prompt.

Rose is pacing. She’s been pacing since they got the call. 

“Rose,” the Doctor says, from where he’s sprawled on the bed, “please. Come and rest. You’ll do him no good if you’re dead on your feet tomorrow.” 

“Rest? How can I rest? Mickey’s –” she’s brought up short by a sob. The Doctor gets up, and gathers her to him. She melts against him. 

“It’ll be okay Rose,” the Doctor soothes, “they’ll find him.” He rubs her back. 

“How can you be so sure?” Rose asks, her voice muffled into his chest. 

“Because, I know Torchwood and I know Mickey. And I know  _you.”_

Rose let’s him lead her to the bed, let’s him pull her down beside him. 

“Just, lay down with me okay? You don’t have to sleep, but just rest for a minute. I’ll watch your comm.” 


	37. 25. “I can’t believe you talked me into this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten x Rose, silliness. Written for a tumblr prompt.

“I cannot  _believe_ ,” Rose says, for the fifteenth time, “that I let you talk me into this.” The Doctor can’t quite believe it either, but decides, rather wisely he thinks, not to say anything. 

They are pressed tightly together, the harness digging into tender bits of his skin, but all of that is secondary to the softness of Rose’s body crushed against his. The instructor is attaching things around their ankles and he steps back and surveys his handiwork. 

“All set?” the instructor asks, and the Doctor grins. Rose holds one of his hands tightly, the other is white-knuckled around the strap that goes over her shoulder. 

“Yeah,” the Doctor answers, “we’re ready.”

“’Kay,” the instructor says, and helps them frog-march to the edge of the platform. “Whenever you’re ready.” 

“On three?” Rose asks gamely, and the Doctor looks down at her. 

“On three,” he confirms. 

“One,” the instructor begins, and Rose’s hand tightens around his, “two,” the instructor says and the Doctor feels his hearts speed up with a rush of adrenaline. “Three!” 

Rose and the Doctor jump. 

They fall for what seems like forever before the bungee catches them and springs them back up. Rose screams but it is the kind of scream that is full of excitement and exhilaration and the Doctor throws back his head and joins her. 


	38. 36. “I wish I could hate you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tentoo x Rose, unresolved angst.

It’s late when he finally comes home and Rose is still sitting where he left her, head in her hands at the kitchen table. 

Her words from earlier still ring in the corners of the room. 

_“I wish I could hate you.”_

The Doctor swallows hard when she looks up at him from the table. Her face is tear-stained and her eyes are red-rimmed. 

“I’m sorry Doctor,” she murmurs, and he knows, but still. “I don’t know what came over me, I didn’t mean it, please don’t think I meant it.” Her eyes implore him to see the truth and he does, but the knife she stuck in his back this afternoon is wedged in deep between his ribs. 

She waits him out, having made her apology. He says nothing, just scrubs a hand over his face. 

“I’m not ready to accept your apology yet Rose,” he says finally, and she winces, but she nods. “I’m going to spend the weekend at Mickey and Jake’s.”

He leaves again, and just before he shuts the door to the flat, he hears her;

_“Doctor, I’m so sorry.”_


	39. 5. “Wait a minute. Are you jealous?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten x Rose. Silliness.

Rose watches the Doctor pace around the console. He’s agitated, she can tell. He keeps looking at her, and then looking away. He tunnels his fingers into his hair, and then drops his hands to his side. He looks at her again, and Rose lets her mouth curve into a smile. His mouth twists and he looks away. 

“Wait a minute,” she says, “are you – are you jealous?” 

“No,” the Doctor says, too quickly and Rose knows he knows she knows. 

“You are, aren’t you?” 

“Time Lords are above jealousy,” he says, and Rose laughs. She laughs so hard she falls off the jumpseat. 


	40. 32. “I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten x Rose. Silliness.

They are sharing fries at her local chippy when he blurts it out. 

“I think I’m in love with you,” he says, “and I’m terrifed.” 

Rose blinks at him. The silence stretches between them. She blinks at him again.

“Say something,” he pleads, “Rose, please?” 

“I, uh,” Rose says, and picks up a French fry. The Doctor looks stricken. “Of course I love you, you knob,” Rose says finally, and the Doctor lets out the breath he’d been holding. 

“Well, that’s good. I mean. Uh. Quite right too?”

Rose rolls her eyes and bites the end off the French fry. 


	41. And She Went Supernova

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bad Wolf!Rose. Written for [timepetalsprompts](http://timepetalsprompts.tumblr.com)'s weekly drabble theme. The theme that week was 'birth'. I took a metaphorical interpretation.

The TARDIS console comes apart with a  _thunk_  that reverberates up her arms from where her hands are planted in the telepathic circuits. Golden light spills from the broken console and Rose cannot look away. She can feel it, the heat of it, the power of it, and she can see  _everything_.

One thought rings through her mind, and only one thought:

_I want you safe, my Doctor._

The golden fire rushes through her and Rose screams. She’s being ripped apart, being reformed at the basest level and it is  _agony_. Every synapse fires, all her nerves fizz and Rose is consumed.

After the fire, there is euphoria - the breathless sweeping joy of piloting the TARDIS like she’s been born to it, like she’s part of it, and she is, she was, she will be.

This is rebirth, this is the beginning, this is time and space made flesh and bone and she can feel the power thrumming in her veins and she reaches out with both hands to grasp it and shape it and bend it to her will. She will save the Doctor, she will save them all.

“I am the Bad Wolf,” she says, “I create myself.” 


	42. 28) things you said but not out loud

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tentoo x Rose, bit o' angst set immediately post-Journey's End.

It’s different now, Rose thinks, as she follows the new-new Doctor off the beach, the dying whine of the departing TARDIS drowned out by the pounding surf. She needed to know, she thinks, she needed to hear the words. 

It hadn’t been necessary before. she’d always known, but then they’d been separated for so long, battered by time and space and forces out of each other’s control, and Rose, well, she’s only human, she thinks, trudging up the dunes in this blue-clad Doctor’s wake.  Anyway, it hadn’t really been a choice - the Doctor was going whether Rose or anyone else liked it or not. There’d never been any other option.

She can still hear his voice in her ear, the husky whisper of the words she’d wanted from the other man, the words she hadn’t realised she’d wanted until he wouldn’t give them to her, until she’d given them to him first, in tears, on this very beach. Rose pauses at the top of the tune to look back. The sand picked up by the wind stings where it hits her face, and the wind slides through her hair with greedy fingers. 

“Rose?” Rose turns at his voice, questioning and unsure. There was never this lack of confidence in either of her other Doctors, Rose notes, even when bewildered, they never let on. She wonders if this is a Doctor feeling or a Donna one. She knows from talking to Martha that the Doctor was the definition of Not Okay when Martha and he were travelling together. Rose herself has nightmares of him standing on a radio antenna, screaming at the sky, daring the lightning to strike, and she wasn’t even there. 

“Sorry, ‘m just–” Rose pauses, and gestures with her hand to encompass the beach before turning back towards him. He stands, hands shoved into the pockets of his pants, rocked a bit back on his heels. Rose looks him up and down - same legs, same face, same stupidly great hair, but her gaze catches on the differences - the hesitation in his posture, the way he’s chewing his bottom lip, the way his eyes keep sliding away from hers like he won’t quite look at her. 

Rose takes one last look at the sea. The steel grey sky is reflected in the water that is churning with breaking waves, pounding high up the beach and turning into spray against the rocks. This far north, the Atlantic is bone-chillingly cold and the wind off the water tastes like salt when she licks her lips. The tide is coming in and soon it will obliterate the mark the TARDIS made when it landed, and the only things she’ll have left of him are this man standing a careful four feet from her and the key that has gone cold and dead around her neck. 

Rose turns from the view and back towards the future she never had any say in and that she must now face. 


	43. 58) things you were afraid to say

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Ten x Rose, visit to a deep space cruising vessel gone awry, my usual amount of angst, but it ends well.)

The Doctor blinks. 

Rose is so close, pressed up against him on their tiny island of safety in the falling apart cruiser. He can feel her trembling in his arms. He tightens his grip and Rose’s arms come up around his waist, her fingers digging into the fabric of his coat. “It’ll be okay,” he says, speaking around the sonic screwdriver held between his teeth. “I’ll have us out of here in a jiffy.” 

The Doctor risks a look down at Rose, smiling as best as he can with a mouth full of carefully constructed gadget. Her eyes are blown wide, fear turning whiskey warmth to a pool of murky amber. The Doctor drags his gaze away from Rose’s, goes back to watching the sonic work the panel just over their heads. It’s difficult work, because he can’t reach and he can’t use his hands since their tiny platform is barely big enough for one and it’s only the Doctor’s preternatural balance that is keeping them steady. 

He doesn’t want to think about what might happen if he gets distracted from either task. It’s a long drop to the bottom of the reactor core, but the Doctor knows that given the taste of tachyon particles in the air, it wouldn’t be the landing that killed either of them.

The panel sparks and fizzes and their little platform (what’s left of the lift they jumped into when the cruiser started going up) shudders. The Doctor tightens his hold on Rose. The breath goes out of her in an ‘oof’. He can feel the puff of it, hot, on his neck. He grits his teeth more firmly around the sonic and uses his tongue to adjust a setting, feeling rather than hearing the vibrations in the tool. 

The platform moves, sliding up in a jerky motion that would knock them off if the Doctor wasn’t the Doctor.  It comes to a stop with a whine and a loud thunk, just out of reach of the lip of the door. Rose looks up, and the Doctor follows her gaze. 

“Give me a boost,” she says, nodding up at the edge of the door. “If you can lift me up there, I can pull you up after me.” 

“No,” the Doctor says, shaking his head. 

Rose lets go of him with one hand and reaches up, plucking the sonic from his mouth. “Then what?” 

“You won’t be able to lift me.” Rose frowns at him. The Doctor’s mind races. Timelines spiral out in front of him in his mind; so many golden pathways snuffed short. There’s no easy way out of this. She’ll have to leave him here, and make a run for the TARDIS. The ship will keep her safe when the reactor goes critical. Rose will not agree to this plan, he knows, so he’ll have to be sneaky about it.  

“Are you saying I’m weak, Doctor?” Rose asks. There’s the hint of a smile in the corner of her mouth, but the Doctor reads the strain in her tight jaw and the way her fingers flex in his coat.

“Not weak,” the Doctor says, and then he looks down at Rose. She’s looking up at him. Black lit by the blue glow of Cherenkov radiation from below she looks like a wake angel, flyaway strands of her hair framing her face and moving in the breeze of the slowly chugging ventilation system. 

“Never mind,” the Doctor says, “I’ll boost you.” 

“Oh, my big, strong, alien man,” Rose teases, and the Doctor rolls his eyes. 

“Not the time, Rose,” he says, affection bleeding into his voice. Rose smiles up at him. “I’m going to let go now, keep holding on to me until I tell you.” Rose nods. 

The Doctor unwinds his arms from around her waist, hands gripping her hips firmly. He can feel the heat of her skin. Rose’s breath hitches but her hands stay steady around his own waist. She has the sonic clenched tightly in one hand, he can feel it digging in. “I’m going to lift you now,” the Doctor says. 

He braces himself, steels his core, and lifts. Rose lets go of him immediately and reaches up over her head. There’s a terrifying moment where he nearly loses his balance and takes them both down into oblivion, but Rose makes a sound of triumph as she pulls herself up onto her forearms. 

“I’ve got it,” she says. 

“Hold on,” the Doctor warns, and then slides his hands down the side of her thighs, and lifts her again. Rose pulls herself onto the platform. The last piece of her the Doctor touches is the soles of her shoes. He takes a moment to re-center himself on the platform, and turns, looking up at her. 

Rose grins at him, already reaching down to pull him up after her. “No,” the Doctor says, “I already told you, you can’t lift me.” 

“Wanna make a bet?” Rose asks. The Doctor shakes his head. “Give me your hands, Doctor.” 

“Rose,” the Doctor says, looking up at her. Rose’s grin falters. “Go,” he says, “the TARDIS will keep you safe. She should be close by.” The Doctor ignores the way his voice thickens around the words. Ignores the way Rose’s grin slides completely off her face. 

“No,” Rose says, “I’m not leaving you.” 

“I’ll be fine,” the Doctor says. 

“You will not,” Rose replies, “I know as well as you do that the reactor is going critical beneath your feet.” Rose reaches down again. “Give. Me. Your. Hands.” 

The Doctor shakes his head. “Go the TARDIS.” 

“You are insufferable,” Rose grouses. “I wasn’t going to leave you alone in the pit, I’m not leavin’ you now.” 

They stare each other down for a long moment. Something heavy and metal clangs as it falls down into the core, and something firms in Rose’s eyes. “I’ll be right back,” she says, and then she’s gone. The Doctor slumps in relief, she’ll be safe now. 

Below him, something explodes and a rush of hot air races up the reactor shaft. It won’t be long now. He knows the TARDIS is close enough that Rose will have no trouble finding her. He’s not sure if regeneration will kick in if he falls into the core, but it’s a moot point anyway, because he’ll be spaced shortly after when the cruiser blows and regeneration can’t cure that.  All he has to do now is wait. 

Waiting for his own death is tedious. Another gush of hot air rushes up and billows around him. The ventilation system is going to overload soon, he thinks, chancing a glance down into the eerie blue glow. It pulses, off-rhythm. 

“Doctor!” Rose’s voice startles him out of his thoughts and he looks up. 

“What are you doing here? I told you to go to the TARDIS! Stupid girl! Why do you never do what you’re told?” 

Rose balks at the insult, but doesn’t respond, and instead of saying anything, she tosses a length of rope down to him. “Grab hold,” she says, voice firm, “I’m going to pull you up.” 

“You’re not strong enough,” the Doctor repeats, but Rose’s eyes heat with frustrated determination. 

“I’ve got a pulley rigged, and I tied the line off up here. Let me rescue you, you idiot. Please,” she adds, as an afterthought. “I know you think you’re being all noble and self-sacrificing, but mostly, you’re just being stupid.” Rose shakes the rope. “Please, Doctor,” she says, and the wet sheen in her eyes is what makes up the Doctor’s mind. 

The Doctor grabs the rope. “Wait,” he says, before Rose moves away from the ledge towards what he supposes must be her fulcrum point. Rose lifts an eyebrow. “I–I’m sorry,” he says, “I was–I was afraid.”  

“What are you so afraid of, Doctor?” Rose asks. The ship shudders around them, and Rose’s eyes go wide at the horrible wrenching sound of metal tearing. 

 _Afraid_ , he thinks,  _adjective; meaning to be filled with apprehension, to be feeling regret._ He’s more than just afraid, he thinks, he’s terrified of losing her, terrified of how fiercely she seeks to protect him, how wiling she is to put herself in danger for him. 

The Doctor takes a deep breath and busies himself wrapping a length of rope around his waist, tying it off and then wrapping his wrist around the rope over his head. “Okay,” he tells Rose, who looks like she might push him to answer her question but instead of saying anything, she huffs a breath and then disappears from his view again. 

“I’m gonna start pulling now,” Rose yells, and Doctor yells back an affirmative and then he feels the rope go taut. It takes both no time at all and too much time for Rose to pull him up far enough that he can reach the edge and start to help her. The feeling of hanging in space is not something the Doctor particularly relishes, and the long moments between the time his feet left the platform and his fingers brushed the edge of the floor above him felt like an eternity. 

As soon as he gets himself up onto his forearms, Rose ties off the line and rushes over to him to haul him to safety. As soon as he gets clear of the edge, the reactor erupts, with a  _fwoomp_  of blue-tinged flames. The sonic makes quick work of the rope around his waist, and it falls into a heap of fibers at his feet.

“Run!” the Doctor yells, grabbing Rose’s hand and dragging her along behind him. The TARDIS is close enough that he can see her, and the door swings open without any prompting. Rose and the Doctor collapse over the threshold. The Doctor scrambles to his feet, leaping up the ramp and swinging into action at the console. Rose stays where she landed. 

The TARDIS is rocked by the exploding ship, and then leaps into the vortex, whisking her occupants away from the danger zone with alacrity. 

Once settled into the vortex, the Doctor catches Rose’s eye as she walks up the catwalk to join him at the console and thinks about how determined she was to save him. “Thank you,” he says, and Rose nods, fitting herself against his side. The Doctor wraps an arm around her waist. Rose lifts her hand to his opposite shoulder and the Doctor thinks about how comfortably she fits into the space next to him. 

“You’re welcome,” Rose says, light. She leans forward a bit to catch his eye. “You can stop being a self-sacrificing idiot at any time, you know,” she says, “it’s better with two, remember?” 

The Doctor huffs a laugh. “Everyone needs a hand to hold, right?” he says, and feels Rose’s grip on his shoulder tighten. 

“Yeah,” Rose agrees, “so keep holding onto mine, okay?” 

“Okay,” the Doctor says. 


End file.
